Nomad announced that it has raised approximately $22.4 million in seed funding.
The round was led by Polychain Capital, with additional investors including 1kx, Ethereal Ventures, hack.vc, Circle Ventures, Amber, Robot Ventures, Hypersphere, Figment, Dialectic, Archetype, LedgerPrime, and a host of angels.
Nomad’s cross-chain messaging protocol tackles the growing need for more secure blockchain interoperability. Uniquely, Nomad leverages an optimistic mechanism that allows off-chain watchers to challenge cross-chain messages via fraud proofs. Unlike validator-based cross-chain bridges, Nomad does not rely on a large set of external parties and only one honest actor is required to keep the entire system safe.
“In just the past half year, over $1.5B of value has been exploited due to bridge vulnerabilities. Figuring out how to provide more secure cross-chain messaging is key to uniting DeFi ecosystems on thriving Layer 1 protocols and unlocking their combined value,” said Pranay Mohan, CEO and Co-founder of Nomad. “By prioritizing security-first design, Nomad lets users send messages and bridge assets safely, with the assurance that honest watchers can flag fraudulent activity and protect the system.”
“Secure, cross-chain messaging protocols are critical for the future of decentralized finance because all blockchains operate independently. Meaningful decentralization can’t be achieved until people and applications on different blockchains can communicate through standardized protocols,” said James Prestwich, CTO and Co-founder at Nomad. “Our protocol accelerates the adoption of cross-chain communications to help bridge siloed defi ecosystems together in the most secure and cost-efficient way.”